Wednesday, January 28, 2009

"I perfectly understand the imperatives of political survival and the need to make compromises and to adjust, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But ... it's got a creepy feel to it."

Raves former Harper minister, Monte Solberg:

"The Conservatives have easily escaped to fight another day, but what are they fighting for?"

Two thumbs WAY up from The Fraser Institute's Niels Veldhuis:

...(this budget) reminds him of Paul Martin's 2005 Liberal budget, "which was his attempt to try to satisfy everybody, and eventually it satisfied nobody. So I draw similarities between that and this budget - except, of course, for the huge deficit."

Oh, snap!

Blogging Tory honcho Stephen Taylor says if you see just one budget this year, make it this one:

"This budget is not a failure of the Conservative party, it is a failure of the conservative movement...a political party, in practice, is not much more than a marketing machine to sell ideas to an electorate looking to buy them."

I take it back. The free market does work.

Peter Woolstencroft, a self-described "Robert Taft conservative" and political scientist at the University of Waterloo, says make room on the mantle for an Oscar:

"I could not see any over-arching vision or purpose. If this is the kind of budget that Conservative government produces ... why bother voting for these people?"